Diary for Harry and Judy's RV Trip


Day 35-July 23, 2012-Seattle, WA

2012-07-23

Day 35-July 23, 2012-Seattle, WA
Started the day at the KOA rec room where they have a pancake breakfast every morning, but it’s not only pancakes, they have eggs, omelets, bacon, sausage, toast, etc. Had a good breakfast before we started on our tour of Seattle, about 20 minutes north of the campground
We went with the same tour company we used yesterday for this five hour trip through most of Seattle. Started in Pioneer Square which burned to the ground in 1889 but you can still take an underground tour and see some of the remnants of what was left during the gold rush hey-day. Went into the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Museum and saw the equivalent of a ton of gold in bullion and they had a scale that figured out how much you are worth in gold, Harry was worth almost $5 million.
Drove through some the other neighborhoods of Seattle, Chinatown, the Waterfront where we got off to see the locks and the salmon ladder, the artsy Freemont area, Queen Anne, Belltown, Ballard and, of course, the ritzy Magnolia. Steep hills all over the city which has a very big influence from Bill Gates and Paul Allen, they have buildings all over the place. And coffee stores, there seems to be at least three Starbucks, which originated here, for every one of every other company. Also on the waterfront were ice busters, huge ships used to break up ice in the north in the winter and cruise ships about to depart for Alaska. Also saw a lakefront community that had 450 houseboats on it, all close together but really nice looking, some only 350 square feet and others that were 3 floors, had 3 bedrooms, a wine cellar, glass garage doors in the living room that opened up on the lake and lots of extras. The “lot” goes for $1.4 million and then you put your house on it. I really liked this neighborhood. Lots of poverty and homeless here too like any big city. Construction everywhere you looked. There’s an electric bus system here too and from what everybody says it’s easy to get around via bus or train. Pretty hanging baskets of petunias and other flowers on most of the buildings and gardens everywhere. Very pretty and smelled nice, too. Lots of artwork and sculpture all over town, some nice, some really weird like a 4000 lb. cement troll under a bridge with a life sized VW Beetle squished in his hand and some neon blue trees in a city square.
Drove up to Kerry Park and had a great view of the Space Needle, a 605’ structure built for the 1962 World’ Fair. They’re celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and the top is painted the original color. Our final stop was at Pike Place Market, covering nine acres it’s the oldest continuous operating market in the US, it’s over 100 years old and had 157 permanent stores, including the original Starbucks and various booths that can be rented daily by vendors. All kinds of merchandise and food here but they say the best bargains are the flower bouquets, and there are lots of vendors selling them. The place is crammed with people.
All in all, the way I see it, if you take New York City, San Francisco, Portland, OR and Boston and shake them up and pour them out you get Seattle. It has a little of all of these cities and yet has its own flavor. I’m glad we got to visit here but I don’t think we’d ever come back. (Except maybe on the way to Alaska).
Got back to the campground around 2PM, headed out again to gas up for tomorrow and to stock up on some groceries. Don’t know if where we’re going there will be many grocery stores. The weather has been “Seattley” all day, menacing dark clouds, damp and chilly-it didn’t even make it to 70 today. Back at camp there was an ice cream social so we had to attend that, of course, and then we talked to our new neighbors who pulled in from Montana for a few days.
Leaving tomorrow, not really sure which way we’re heading, we’ve talked about a lot of different places and different directions. Guess we’ll talk again some more before we get in the truck tomorrow.